The Boy Who Knew What the Birds SaidColum, Padraic
Science
The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said
Colum, Padraic
Birds -- Fiction; Fairy tales
Branduv called Mananaun out of the sea, and he asked that he renew the
promise he had made to his father. The Lord of the Sea did not want a
promise to lapse because of the death of a man, and he renewed it to
the man's son. Then Mananaun told him he would take him and show him
the Kingdoms of the Sea and whatever he saw that he desired there
would be given to him. He took him in his boat of glass "The Ocean
Sweeper" to visit the Kingdoms of the Sea.
They came to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, and there Mananaun gave
Branduv a branch of everlasting blossoms; they came to another Kingdom
and there Mananaun gave him a sword that was the best wrought in the
world; they came to a third Kingdom and there Mananaun gave him a pair
of hounds that could run down the silver-antlered stag. But as yet
Branduv the King had asked no gift from Mananaun.
They came to Mananaun's own Kingdom, Silver-Cloud Plain, and there
Branduv was left alone while Mananaun drank the Ale of the Ever-Living
Ones. The King saw from the shores of Silver-Cloud Plain "The Ocean
Sweeper," and he directed that the boat bring him to the island. And
the boat travelled as the one in it wished.
Only one thing had ever made me fearful of dancing on the shore of the
Island of Hathony--that was the presence there of a pair of Ravens.
These Ravens had once been Sea-maidens, but they had desired men for
husbands, and they had gone to them. The men forsook them, and they
had become first Witches and afterwards Ravens. Ever since their
change they wished harm to the Maidens of the Sea. I had been
frightened of them, but now I had seen them flapping about so often
that I was no longer or I was only a little, afraid.
I came up through the sea and I danced upon the shore of the island,
and the play of the waves was in my dance, and my long soft green
hair fell over my foam-white, foam soft body. I danced on, O my
listeners, and as no one had ever seen me looked upon, I thought no
one looked upon me now.
But this King of the earthly Kingdom saw me. He saw me as I danced by
the waves, and I was the fairest thing he had ever looked upon. At
first he was all wonder and no robber's thoughts were in his mind. But
the Ravens came to him. One perched on one shoulder and one perched on
the other, and one said "If you carry Eevil off you will have the
fairest wife in all the world," and the other said "If you leave her
here you will never look on anything as fair again."
The Ravens flapped before him to guide him to a place in the dark
rocks where he might hide and to which I might come. He followed where
they led. But I saw his shadow on a rock. I drew back and the sea took
me and drew me into its depths. "The sea has taken her," said Branduv
to the Ravens.
"Mananaun is Lord of the Sea," said one of the Ravens.
"And Mananaun has promised you a gift, and he cannot refuse what you
will ask," said the other Raven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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